Cheatin' Songs

I was happily listening to yahoo radio a while ago and a song came on that up until that moment I had liked. It's called Stay and the story in it is how the woman seeing a married man is begging him to stay when his wife calls. She talks about how she can love him better than his wife can. Ultimately she sings how she has realized that she deserves better than how he treats her and how next time he can "stay" with his wife because she herself has discovered some inner strength to let him go. The song leaves one with the idea that we are meant to admire her for this strength and applaud that she has let him leave.

When I heard the song this time, something struck me that never had before. When did this become ok? When did it become the norm that we are expected to sympathize with someone who willingly went into a relationship with someone they knew they had no right to be with?

I saw an interview about a year ago where the singer of the song admitted that the tears she shows in the video for the song were real because she had been in that situation so the song hit real emotions with her. The interviewer was completely sympathetic and talked only about how difficult that must have been.

Why was she not asked why she became involved with a married man in the first place? Why was she not asked how she thought this mans wife (and maybe children) felt knowing about her?

I understand that people cheat in relationships. Been there had that happen. In all honesty, as shamed as I am to admit it, though my ex and I hadn't lived together in many years, we were still legally married when Russell and I got together. So technically I too could be accused of cheating But I certainly expect no sympathy or kudos about that. I state it only in the name of honesty.

I don't know; maybe I am intolerant and utterly old fashioned. But I can't sympathize with many of the current ideas society says we should be upset about. Cheating is just one of them. I realize some people are in open relationships and while that's not for me, I don't put it in the same category as cheating because that is a choice they are making not something done TO them.

Is there a point to this note you may be asking? I have no idea. Maybe it's just me venting; maybe it is me shedding a written tear for what seems to me to be yet one more unraveled thread in the fabric of humanity. When we don't bat an eye at songs, movies, books, TV shows, what ever, that casually show cheating as the norm and seem to suggest we feel sympathy for the cheaters rather than the victims, I can't help but wonder how far society will go. What will we become inured to next?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPG1n1B0Ydw